Click here to view artist's works

Georges Rouault (1871-1958)

Georges Rouault was born during a bombardment of his Quarter at the time of the Paris Commune of 1871; an appropriate beginning for one of the most powerful artists of the century. Rouault was preoccupied throughout his life with man's inhumanity to fellow man. However, his art does not pass judgment on the human condition; rather it offers hope for a new beginning.

A French expressionist artist, Rouault first apprenticed to a stained-glass maker. More than any other 20th century artist, one associates Rouault with the extremes of human emotions and actions. He portrayed absolutes: the outcast and the saint, the sufferer and the redeemer. Yet these extremes merge into one.

After 1891 Rouault studied under Gustave Moreau. He exhibited several paintings with the Fauves in 1905. His sorrowful and bitter delineations of judges, clowns, and prostitutes caused a great stir in Paris. The suffering of Christ was his frequent subject. His thickly encrusted, powerfully colored images, outlined heavily in black, have the effect of icons and a pattern suggestive of stained glass.

Rouault's search for absolute values has its counterpart in his highly individual graphic techniques. Around 1916, Rouault began more than a decade of work for the publisher Vollard. Using a variety of graphic processes, he executed a series of about 60 prints called Miserere. The metaphysical quality of his monchrome lithographs and the magnificent blacks of his monochrome intaglios were achieved through highly unorthodox techniques. For his color aquatints, Rouault employed the sugar-lift process to realize colors which are at once, rich, subtle and luminous.

He continued to paint the themes he had used earlier, but in a more tranquil style. Rouault's works are unequaled in the religious art of our time. Examples of his art can be found in many European and American collections. The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, owns his Three Judges and Christ Mocked by Soldiers. Georges Rouault died in 1958 at age 87. During his long career he was able to translate a profound moral vision into an equally intense aesthetic experience.

back to top